We breakdown tips and tricks for Airbnb, VRBO, and other Short Term Rental platforms, for HOSTS to find success! From product reviews, how to take the perfect listing photo, and ideas on investment strategies!

THE IMPORTANCE OF INVESTING IN YOUR AIRBNB LISTING (and how it helps you charge more)

Hey YouTube what’s happening it’s Richard founder short-term rental university and Airbnb super host today’s video is about the importance of investing in your listing all right so why is it important well you’ve heard in other videos that Airbnb as a community and as a service is growing and maturing and that means that competition is escalating and what we need to do is host to get bookings and to generate maximum profit is charge more money and get better people and more bookings the way to do that is to differentiate ourselves from the plain vanilla commodity providers the easiest way to do that is to invest in your property photograph it properly sell the dream and encourage people to want to stay at our places booked us and not the competition so before we get started I want to give a real-life case scenario here now shout out to my man Zak Scriven from LA he’s been a longtime follower now he’s a member at the short-term rental university thank you very much and he participated in a live conversation we had with one Sheik retreat will include the link below and they’re actually on the podcast they were giving design and interior decorating tips Zak was enamored with what he saw and knew he needed some help and so a big shout-out to Zak for actually spending a little bit of money to invest in his property and for one Sheik retreat helping Zak out I don’t know what the results are yet because I think it’s too soon but I have seen some of the before-and-after photos in our membership group and they’re spectacular and I’m certain that he’s gonna increase his profitability by charging higher rates and having a higher occupancy and that’s sort of the goal so Zak continue to give us updates we’d really appreciate it but that’s the premise anybody can sort of do it if you don’t do this naturally or you need some help there’s resources out there listen to our podcast to get some great tips and in the meantime let’s talk about some ideas that I have and some of the things that I’m wrestling with personally in my place in Jackson Hole so here’s two decisions that I’m making right now about my place in Jackson Hole and they’re related but they’re different and they’re both pretty expensive the first one is how much outdoor furniture do I need I have an outdoor patio and a deck and it makes sense to have some outdoor furniture but the reality of it is it’s only usable in the summer months not so much in the winter months and then – most of the people that are coming to Jackson Hole in the summer tend to be coming to do something outdoors like whitewater rafting or climbing or going to use cemani not necessarily sitting around and enjoying a beer on a deck so the question is how important is it for me to invest in that outdoor furniture how much did I spend and then a related one is do I need a hot tub now what I’m told by property managers in the area is that a hot tub is desirable and a competitive advantage and a lot of people have it so if I don’t have it it’s a competitive disadvantage and so I’m sitting here wrestling with well do I spend ten thousand dollars on outdoor furniture and $10,000 on a Jacuzzi that’s twenty thousand dollars and it’s not really gonna be used a lot so what do I do and I don’t have a decision yet I’m still working through and I’m trying to optimize it and find the right solution but here’s my thinking it comes down to selling the dream so the people that are looking on Airbnb or home away for a place in Jackson even though they may go to Yellowstone all day and or whitewater raft and or climb and they may actually never use the outdoor space when they’re booking it when they’re looking at the photos they’re gonna look at this beautiful well decorated beautiful outdoor space with couches and sofas and a grill and hot tub and all of this stuff and they’re gonna say I want that and so if I do that chances are I’m gonna book more frequently and I can increase my nightly rate now you can increase my profit and so I’m depreciating the furniture and the jacuzzi it’s an expense expensing the maintenance of the say the jacuzzi I’m increasing my profitability and there’s a break-even point maybe I don’t break even in year one but maybe I break even in year two and then maybe in year three it’s all profit right so I’m starting to think about what I’m going to invest how much in what solution to give myself a competitive advantage to increase my booking rate to increase my average nightly rate and as an investment in measured in years and not in days or weeks or months and if you start to think about all of that the bottom line of this video is you need to invest in your property to differentiate yourself from everyone else as a our B&B becomes more competitive and – you need to charge accordingly don’t go out and get all this furniture and keep your nightly rate the same if I have 600 square feet of outdoor space that’s properly decorated and beautifully decorate maintained without door space I need to charge more for that I think I can I know I can and then if there’s maintenance associated with the jacuzzi guess what my cleaning fee goes up so think about all of these things like you would a business you have to have a marketing budget an advertising budget a cleaning budget of you know depreciation expense with your accountant you start to do all that it all comes together and generates more profits so two caveats I want to point out one is in the back your mind you should always try and invest in things that you would either use yourself and enjoy personally or if it didn’t work out you could put in a different property so for instance if people didn’t pay more for the outdoor furniture and/or the hot tub would I personally use it could I use it in another location maybe but that’s something that you should ask yourself before you go out and spend aggressively and overdevelop that’s a problem I’m not encouraging you to go out and spend a ton of money and then find out that people don’t want it or that you can’t increase your prices it’s a business decision it’s a business analysis and I’d encourage you to do it and one of the fall backs is do I have an alternate use could I use it personally what I enjoy it if that’s the case that makes that decision a little bit easier for you as well and the second thing to think about is your location right so in Jackson Hole I think people will spend more for that hot tub but if I were in you know some very remote spot and I’m not booking a lot I don’t know that I would spend that kind of money in the hopes that I would attract more people there’s a million-plus people that come to Jackson every single summer some of them have money some of them would like a hot tub I might want to cater to that subset but I’m not trying to attract a million people to Jackson because I have a hot tub so in a nutshell you’ve heard me say this time and time again sell the dream again I think the dream is people looking they’re coming for a family vacation they want to come to Jackson for the summer or the winter and they look at this outdoor space and it’s 400 600 square feet of outdoor manicured space with furniture and hot tubs and grills and it’s just like wow look at what a great time we could have there I think that’s going to generate clicks sell the dream in reality I don’t know if they’re actually gonna use it or if they’re gonna benefit as much as I’m gonna charge them for it but that’s not my issue my issue is sell the dream getting my place booked having it be perfect for them when they come and enjoy it and if they’re too busy outdoors at Yellowstone and they never get in the hot tub c’est la vie now to be fair a hot tub has a consequence and a concern and something that I’m wrestling with I’d love to hear your thoughts on it which is liability you know anytime you have water and children and families and so on there’s a liability issue I want to underscore that I don’t take that lightly that might be a reason enough that I don’t put in a hot tub but at the same time it’s a really good amenity people want it and liked it and so I’m wrestling with that I’d love to hear from you if you have a hot tub how you minimize liability what you think about it but it would be silly for me to go on and on about how great having a hot tub is in increasing profits and not mention the downside which is water pools of water hot tubs etc big liability human safety first please be careful so that’s what’s on my mind and those are the issues that I’m wrestling with in Jackson I’m making these decisions in real time and I wanted to share it with you I’d love to hear from you in the comments below what have you done for your investment that’s generated a positive return on investment what have you done that hasn’t worked out the way you thought the reason I want to know all this is the more that we share in the comments below the more we grow from one another the more we avoid mistakes the more profit we make the more we can reinvest the more we can grow the more comments whether you get it anyway LIKE the video and subscribe thanks so much